I've previously mentioned the quick steering rack on the ST. It makes motorways a little tiresome but is superb on B-road blasts. This might be indicative of the set-up being just a touch too sporty. I think I've found another two pieces of evidence to support that hypothesis.

The ride is quite unsettled at low speed. The dampers are designed to swallow up undulations and imperfections at high speed, but everything just feels bouncy and unsettled when moving slower.

Also, for the enthusiasts, the strong initial bite on the brake pedal makes it tricky to heel-toe brake with much subtlety. A trip to your local track would likely make more sense, where a much firmer foot on the middle pedal would make blipping the throttle more comfortable and manageable. Who knows, maybe a couple more months of gradual brake pad wear would sort this out?

Sadly, I won't get to find out as the Fiesta's due to go back soon. Shame!

By Tom Langan

Week ending: August 12Mileage: 14,345Miles driven this week: 633

As they say, accidents happen.

Last week was proof of that as the Fiesta ST came up against a Toyota RAV4 with no spacial awareness on a tight country lane. As the Toyota failed to slow, I was left with two options; risk a coming together of front wings or duck out of the way in the direction of an aggressive looking kerb-stone. I chose the latter.

Thankfully the ST has proved to be pretty resilient, only scuffing the nearside front wheel with no damage done to the tracking or suspension. So the alloy repair man has called, and shortly all will be well again with our tough little hot hatch.

By Tom Langan

Week ending: August 5Mileage: 13,712Miles driven this week: 92

Every time I drive our Fiesta ST I want to buy one. In fact, if we didn’t have one on our long-term test fleet, I probably would have done so by now. Our car won’t be around for much longer, though, so I decided to have a look at some of the deals available. Best I could find was a staggering £3216 discount at Drivethedeal.com, which brings the price down to £14,975. If you’re happy to stick with the slightly more basic ST (rather than the ST-2) you’ll pay £14,135. That’s one of the best hot hatches ever made for barely more than the brochure price of a 1.0 Zetec model.

What’s the catch? Well, these prices do include a £850 deposit contribution from Ford, and to get that you’ll obviously need to take out finance. Still, you only need to borrow £2500 from Ford to qualify for the discount, so you won’t necessarily have to cough up lots of cash in interest charges.